InsaneJournal

Obama's Stimulus bill.
Obama's stimulus bill.

I'm a frugal person and always worry about going into debt. Banks soaked up the money from the bail-out and didn't start lending again. I would be against yet another no-strings-attached bail-out.

But this stimulus package is practical.

It provides money for education and schools. An investment in kids is an investment in the future.

It funds laying 3,000 miles of transmission lines for a national electric grid -- remember when our power grid on the east coast went out in 2003? We learned our infrastructure is from the 60s. Bush never did anything about it. This will provide blue collar jobs and put us on a level playing field with countries like China who are building a modern infrastructure now.

And it will guarantee health coverage for people losing their jobs. Anyone here worried about losing their jobs and health insurance? *raises hand*

Health care is practical for the whole country. I used to work for an insurance company. When people don't have health insurance, they don't stop getting sick.

What happens is they go to the emergency rooms at public hospitals -- which is the most expensive care -- but then can't pay. Hospitals eat the costs or else they turn people away. The press (see Sicko) has video and has reported on sick people getting dumped by hospitals in strange neighborhoods. Just... hiring cabs and dropping them off, still in their hospital gowns. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

Beyond the sheer immorality and potential tragedy on the horizon with current job losses, these costs have to go somewhere.

Usually, hospitals eat the costs and pass them along to those who can pay -- employers. With businesses struggling to stay afloat, this is not the time for employer health care costs to suddenly spike. If we can get people who've lost their jobs coverage and continue to support the very, very, very cheap and efficient community health clinics* this will protect businesses from indirectly shouldering the health care costs of the expanding unemployed.

I don't know everything in this bill. But what I do know of it, we need.


* These are cheaper because they focus on smaller health problems, long term health maintenance, and rely heavily on nurse practitioners.